BY
Sophie Griffiths

Ryanair cites Brexit vote for fall in profit guidance

Ryanair has blamed the Brexit vote for a fall in its full year net profit guidance, predicting growth of 7% rather than 12%.

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Ryanair latest airline to blame Brexit for profit fall

The budget carrier revealed today that it had revised its full year net profit guidance by 5%, from a previous range of €1.375 billion - €1.425 billion, to a new range of €1.30 billion - €1.35 billion.

It said the “primary cause of the slightly lower growth in the full year profitability was the 18% fall of sterling post Brexit”, which it said would reduce fares in the second half of the year by between 13% - 15%, rather than between 10% - 12%, as previously guided.

Ryanair said its first half-year fares had been “marginally weaker” at -10% compared to previously guided -9%.

It added however, that these lower fares would be “partly offset by a better than expected cost performance.”

Ryanair said it now expected that full year traffic would increase to 119 million - a 12% growth on last year’s 106 million customers.

“While higher load factors, stronger traffic growth and better cost control will help to ameliorate these weaker revenues, it is prudent now to adjust full year guidance which will rise by approx. 7% (over FY 2016) rather than our original guidance of 12%. This decline is primarily due to the impact of weaker sterling on our H2 fares.

We would caution that this revised guidance remains heavily dependent upon no further weakness in H2 fares (-13% to -15%) or sterling from its current levels (€1 = £0.9050).”